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Team:INSA Toulouse/contenu/safety/safety in the lab
From 2013.igem.org
Safety in the Lab
Concerning our institution, safety in INSA Toulouse
INSA Toulouse is a public school, which have some laboratories used for public research. Everybody in the INSA must also follow the French word code, which legislates for respect of environment, workers and public safety. Most of the rules we have to follow are presented on the manual “Manuel de sécurité en laboratories” (from the WHO), which permit us to know almost everything we have to know about safety with microorganisms we use and products we manipulate. In addition, daily use of Deming wheel allows us to improve the safety system and keep it updated.
Concerning the laboratory
Worker protections
As in every lab, we use conventional protection when manipulating. Every experiment has to be made with gloves and a conventional lab coat , protecting the worker and avoiding contaminations. We also wear glasses when they are useful (UV exposition, EtBr using, hot water manipulations, chemicals manipulation…).
Waste gesture
After a formation of chemical waste gesture and biological hazard, we learn how to use different trash cabs as described in the picture. Biological wastes, potentially containing viable microorganism, are firstable autoclaved in a special bag, then discard on the classical way. Chemical waste are regrouped and treated every month together with wastes of other labs of the campus.
Devices and Material
In this part, we’ll list all devices we use and how to use them safely :
- Chemical Storage We got separated and dedicated racks for every kind of chemical product we use. As you can see on pictures, those boxes are key-closed and gesture of bottles and product is made when we used them.
- Ethydium bromure room A room is dedicated for using EtBr, while this reactant has been proved as highly mutagenic and dangerous for user. This room is key-closed and gloves, glasses and lab coat are compulsory to enter in. Two special boxes, for gesture of spoiled EtBr wastes, are putting at disposition of users for future and special treatments.
- Biological safety cabinet To avoid external contamination and limiting exposure to biological material, we use a Biological safety cabinet (FASTER – Ultrasafe) which is controlled every year. It works according to the principle of laminar flux circulation and filter, in such a way microorganism are stuck into the cabinet, and external contaminations are impossible. This cabinet is cleaned-up every morning when we arrive and every evening when we leave.
- Electric burner For all manipulations, we also use electric burners, which are as efficient as Bunsen burners (even more), but much more safe than them (this way we limit fire hazards)
- Fume Cupboards To protect the user from volatile chemical compounds while dangerous manipulations, we dispose of two Fume cupboards.
- Water-bathes Use of water-bathes can be dangerous, with exposition of boiling or hot water. We also use special gloves protecting us from projections and steam. The use of water-bathes implies of course wearing glasses and lab coat.
Concerning E. calculus and project
Would E. calculus raise safety issues in terms of :
In this project, we are working with biosafety level 1 microorganism (according to World Health Organization (WHO) Laboratory Biosafety Manual → link) with Escherichia coli DH5α and DH51 strains, which are consider as biologically safe for users. Some of chemical compounds used could be dangerous for health (EtBr, Phenolchloroform..), but as previously described, all precaution are taken to ensure security and safety for all users.
